Stargazing News - May 19th, 2025
From
CJ@21:2/156 to
All on Sun May 18 07:55:01 2025
Monday May 19, 2025
Galaxies near the Maiden's Toes (all night
The two stars that mark the northern foot and toes of Virgo, the Maiden are a treasure trove for galaxy-hunters with manual telescopes. With your telescope centred on the medium-bright, magnitude 3.7 star 109 Virginis, look just 20 arc-minutes to the west for NGC 5746, also known as the Blade and Pearl Galaxy or Mini-Sombrero Galaxy. This magnitude 11.3 gem is a high surface brightness, edge-on spiral aligned N-S. A small, but relatively bright galaxy designated NGC 5740 is in same field, to the west-southwest of 109 Vir. The somewhat fainter naked-eye star named 110 Vir which sits four degrees east of 109 Vir, holds court over set of galaxies collectively known as the NGC 5846 group. NGC 5838, a magnitude 11.5 lenticular galaxy with a bright core surrounded by a
1x3 arc-minutes halo, is located 38 arc-seconds directly east of 110 Vir. Once there, look for the chain of galaxies positioned half a degree to the southeast. It's dominated by NGC 5846, a magnitude 11.2 elliptical galaxy of 2 arc-seconds diameter, and NGC 5850, a bright barred galaxy encircled by a
faint ring.
(Data courtesy of Starry Night)
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